What to do with Moldering Shards in Destiny: The Taken King

The King’s Fall raid in Destiny: The Taken King has many secrets, one of the first questions comes from the mysterious moldering shards. The description on moldering shards reads: Extra rewards will be granted when defeating Oryx in the King’s Fall Raid with at least 20 of these. However, anyone who has had 20 shards and defeated Oryx will walk away still wondering what the shards actually did. Read on to find out more!

Moldering Shards are found from the chests and bosses in the raid. The first chest will drop at least one. Subsequent chests will drop 1-2 and bosses will also drop 1-2. If you are lucky you can get about 15 during a single run through the raid. If you have been paying attention, 15 is just a few shy of 20. After two raids, I had about 30 Moldering Shards enough to satisfy the cryptic message.

Finally upon defeating Oryx, 20 of my Moldering Shards were taken and I had no idea what I had gained. The difference between using the Moldering Shards and not using the Moldering Shards was not easily noticeable. I did not receive any notification that the shards were used and I did not receive any special rewards.

However, I believe that I have figured out what the Moldering Shards do. They give you a chance to receive an exotic drop after defeating Oryx. This is different from the buff that the Three of Coins gives you. You will not receive an exotic engram, you will receive an exotic weapon. Two people in my raid group received Telesto and one received the Last Word. I would assume that any weapon in the loot table can drop. From my own observations I would say that the Moldering Shards give you about a 33-50% chance of getting an exotic!

UPDATE: It seems more accurate to say that Moldering Shards give you an additional drop from any of the raid loot tables after defeating Oryx. For example, if you got the scout rifle from defeating Oryx and had 20 moldering shards, you might get another scout rifle. Or you could get something from Golgoroth’s loot table, etc. Or you could just get 2 moldering shards. That’s right, your 20 moldering shards could result in a drop granting you 2 more moldering shards.

There is still a chance that you can get an exotic weapon from Oryx. I have unconfirmed reports of these weapons being 310, but I have not received one so I can’t be sure. Also these exotic drops are not related to the Three of Coins. It seems you might as well use the Moldering Shards even it is mostly a waste. The shards at least give you a chance at something cool…

You can also buy Moldering Shards from Eris Morn in the Tower for 2500 Glimmer and 15 Hadium Flakes. You also need to be Crota’s Bane Rank 5, which shouldn’t be too bad with the Court of Oryx.

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